Stadium Sales tax rollback:

Tax? Cut? Pepper and Portune vote to add more debt

When Hamilton County voters passed the stadium sales tax in 1996, a key part of the bargain was that 30% of the revenue from the ½ cent sales tax would be devoted to property tax reduction. As the Business Courier and Enquirer report, because of continuing over-spending, including new spending on the Banks project, the fund available for bond repayments are going broke, requiring either a general fund subsidy or elimination of the promised property tax rebate.

Last week, County Commissioners were faced with a vote on the shortfall. Would they decide to finally cut over-spending? Would they reverse the firmly promised tax rebate? Rather, the Commissioners decided to take on an additional $5.5 million in debt and postpone the hard decisions until January.

Now that’s leadership!